Time-dependent Monte Carlo Radiative Transfer Calculations for Three-dimensional Supernova Spectra, Light Curves, and Polarization

By D. Kasen, R. Thomas, P. Nugent. 2006

267 citations recorded by the source corpus.

We discuss Monte Carlo techniques for addressing the three-dimensional time-dependent radiative transfer problem in rapidly expanding supernova atmospheres. The transfer code SEDONA has been developed to calculate the light curves, spectra, and polarization of aspherical supernova models. From the onset of free expansion in the supernova ejecta, SEDONA solves the radiative transfer problem self-consistently, including a detailed treatment of gamma-ray transfer from radioactive decay and with a radiative equilibrium solution of the temperature structure. Line fluorescence processes can also be treated directly. No free parameters need be adjusted in the radiative transfer calculation, providing a direct link between multidimensional hydrodynamic explosion models and observations. We describe the computational techniques applied in SEDONA and verify the code by comparison to existing calculations. We find that convergence of the Monte Carlo method is rapid and stable even for complicated multidimensional configurations. We also investigate the accuracy of a few commonly applied approximations in supernova transfer, namely, the stationarity approximation and the two-level atom expansion opacity formalism.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics, Nuclear and High Energy Physics

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/761d34e9a7d43423767c89f890ee0042b8668a96

How researchers see this paper

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In Astronomy and Astrophysics

1. B. Metzger
2. D. Kasen
3. E. Berger
4. E. Quataert
5. P. Hopkins
6. R. Fern'andez
7. Stan Woosley
8. Stephan Rosswog

In Nuclear and High Energy Physics

1. B. Metzger
2. E. Berger
3. D. Kasen
4. E. Quataert
5. Stan Woosley
6. R. Fern'andez
7. Stephan Rosswog
8. N. Smith

Citations in the corpus

• RADIATIVE TRANSFER SIMULATIONS OF NEUTRON STAR MERGER EJECTA (2013, methodology): “We adopt the formula by Eastman & Pinto (1993), αbbexp(λ) = 1 ct ∑ l λl Δλ (1 − e−τl ), (3) which is also adopted by Kasen et al. (2006).”
• SEEING THE COLLISION OF A SUPERNOVA WITH ITS COMPANION STAR (2009, background): “D non-grey radiation transfer code which also accounts for the effects of line opacity and 56Ni heating (Kasen et al. 2006).”
• ELECTROMAGNETIC TRANSIENTS POWERED BY NUCLEAR DECAY IN THE TIDAL TAILS OF COALESCING COMPACT BINARIES (2011, background): “D time-dependent LTE Monte Carlo radiative transfer code which includes gamma-ray transfer and spectropolarization (Kasen et al. 2006).”
• The difficulty of getting high escape fractions of ionizing photons from high-redshift galaxies: A view from the FIRE cosmological simulations (2015, methodology): “The code is derived from the MCRT code SEDONA base (Kasen et al. 2006) and focuses specifically on radiative transfer of hydrogen ionizing photons in galaxies (see Fumagalli et al. 2011, 2014).”
• PAIR INSTABILITY SUPERNOVAE: LIGHT CURVES, SPECTRA, AND SHOCK BREAKOUT (2011, methodology): “We calculated light curves of the explosion models using the SEDONA code (Kasen et al. 2006).”
• Spectropolarimetry of Supernovae (2008, methodology): “Journal, 132, 189 Kasen et al.(2003)Kasen, D., et al. 2003, ApJ, 593, 788 Kasen et al.(2004)Kasen, D., Nugent, P., Thomas, R. C., & Wang, L. 2004, ApJ, 610, 876 Kasen et al.(2006)Kasen, D., Thomas, R. C., & Nugent, P. 2006, Ap.”
• Kilonova from post-merger ejecta as an optical and near-infrared counterpart of GW170817 (2017, methodology): “For the bound-bound transitions, formalism of the expansion opacity (Eastman & Pinto 1993; Kasen et al. 2006) is used as in the previous kilonova simulations (Kasen et al. 2013; Barnes & Kasen 2013; Tanaka & Hotokezaka 2013).”
• Time-dependent three-dimensional spectrum synthesis for Type Ia supernovae (2009, methodology): “It was pointed out by Kasen et al. (2006) and Kasen (2006) that these missing lines are crucial to obtain light curves in good agreement with observations, especially in the NIR.”
• Impact of ejecta morphology and composition on the electromagnetic signatures of neutron star mergers (2017, methodology): “These are often reasonable approximations for supernovae and macronovae (see Kasen et al. 2006; Barnes & Kasen 2013).”
• EFFECT OF A HIGH OPACITY ON THE LIGHT CURVES OF RADIOACTIVELY POWERED TRANSIENTS FROM COMPACT OBJECT MERGERS (2013, methodology): “Sedona synthesizes the emergent spectral time series, from which we construct bolometric and broadband light curves.”
• FROM SHOCK BREAKOUT TO PEAK AND BEYOND: EXTENSIVE PANCHROMATIC OBSERVATIONS OF THE TYPE Ib SUPERNOVA 2008D ASSOCIATED WITH SWIFT X-RAY TRANSIENT 080109 (2008, background): “A challenge for those who study the complicated nonthermal excitation effects in SN line formation (Baron et al. 1999; Kasen et al. 2006; Dessart & Hillier 2008) would be to self-consistently explain for SN 2008D its early emergence of He I lines (∼5– 6 day after explosion, and ∼12–13 day before…”
• OPACITIES AND SPECTRA OF THE r-PROCESS EJECTA FROM NEUTRON STAR MERGERS (2013, methodology): “We calculated synthetic observables of this ejecta model using the time dependent, multi-wavelength radiation transport code Sedona (Kasen et al. 2006), and assuming that the level populations were in LTE.”
• Three-dimensional delayed-detonation models with nucleosynthesis for Type Ia supernovae (2012, methodology): “For example, the results of Kasen et al. (2006) were not based on detailed yield information obtained by postprocessing each model but mapped representative yields into the individual realizations.”
• RADIOACTIVITY AND THERMALIZATION IN THE EJECTA OF COMPACT OBJECT MERGERS AND THEIR IMPACT ON KILONOVA LIGHT CURVES (2016, methodology): “A.2. γ-rays γ-ray packets are propagated through the grid in small steps in typical Monte Carlo fashion (e.g., Lucy 2005; Kasen et al. 2006.)”
• Sub-Chandrasekhar-mass White Dwarf Detonations Revisited (2017, methodology): “To this end, we employ the Monte Carlo radiative transfer code SEDONA (Kasen et al. 2006) to produce synthetic light curves and spectra, which we discuss and compare to observations in the following sections.”
• SUB-CHANDRASEKHAR MASS MODELS FOR SUPERNOVAE (2010, methodology): “We calculated synthetic light curves and spectra of a representative subset of our models using the time-dependent radiation transport code SEDONA (Kasen et al. 2006).”